If there’s one thing that I’ve struggled with as a parent, it’s setting reasonable chores for my boys. I’m not a fan of cleaning so it’s taken me years just to be able to set a reasonable schedule for myself, never mind monitoring anybody else! But at the same time, I know my boys are old enough to be helping out. I’m just not sure how to get started.

But Seventh Generation, a company whose eco-friendly cleaning products I’ve loved for years now, has created a handy guide for me and any other parent that’s wondered what chores are appropriate for their kids. Check it out and see what cleaning jobs your children can tackle!

My love of eco-friendly cleaning products is something I’ve spoken about often. I don’t like poisonous chemicals in my house and so I’m always looking for great eco-friendly products that still power through dirt and grime. While I appreciate products that are safe for the environment, the truth is that I’m actually far more concerned about the cleaners I use being safe for my family.

Recently, a new line of cleaning products called Earth Rescue was introduced in Canada and the brand promised plant-derived formulas that were biodegradable and free of solvents and VOCs. I received a few of the products to test out and I couldn’t wait.

I am a sucker for fancy cleaning products. I am easily drawn in by pretty packaging, intriguing scents, and claims such as “all natural,” “eco-friendly” and “non-toxic.” Of course it’s not necessary to drop big bucks just to get your home sparkling clean. In fact, some of the most natural and environmentally friendly products are also the least expensive. Here are a few tips to keep your cleaning costs way down:

Make Your Own Cleaning Products

To make your own All Purpose Spray, mix 1 cup of white vinegar with 2 cups of water in a spray bottle. If you’d rather not have the strong vinegar smell try adding a few drops of essential oil. You can find essential oils at most health food stores – choose peppermint, orange, tea tree, or lavender. Use this spray to clean just about anything including counter tops, sinks, kids’ toys, and windows.

Need a little extra scrubbing power to accompany your elbow grease? Make a gentle scrub out of baking soda mixed with a little water and use to clean soap residue and hard water stains, polish metal fixtures and clean stubborn messes on counter tops. As an added bonus, baking soda also deodorizes while it cleans.

Clean a cast iron pan with kosher salt and a non-abrasive sponge. The salt will clean off food residue without removing the pan’s prized seasoning.

Kosher salt can also report for cleaning duty for your wooden cutting boards. Rub the salt over the boards with a cut lemon and then rinse off the lemon juice/salt mixture. The acidity of the lemon juice will disinfect and the abrasive salt rub will get the surface nice and clean. [Read more…]

My love of eco-friendly products is pretty well known. Any time I can replace a poisonous product with a natural, non-toxic one or eliminate a wasteful paper product with a reusable one, I’m a happy woman. That’s why I was so excited to learn about a new Canadian store specializing in providing families with eco-friendly, natural and reusable cleaning supplies and kitchen accessories.

PaperlessKitchen.com carries a great range of products ranging from bamboo dinnerware to eco-friendly wipes. Recently I received an assortment of Skoy Cloths and two Bambooee Rolls to review and I couldn’t wait to say goodbye to sponges and paper towels in my kitchen!

Skoy Cloths are a product I’ve used before and they’re absolutely amazing. Durable, washable and biodegradable, they last as long as most dishcloths and sponges and are way better for the environment since they’re made of cotton and cellulose pulp instead of wood pulp. I also love the versatility of these cloths. They’re good for everything from wiping down kitchen surfaces to washing dishes to scrubbing dried grime. [Read more…]

I’ve never been crazy about cleaning, but after the birth of my boys, I had no choice but to work a little harder at keeping things clean and organized. I’d thought I was messy, but I had nothing on my boys! If I hadn’t changed my ways, our house would have been chaos in a week. As I developed an effective cleaning routine, I started to find eco-friendly cleaners and products to make the job easier and these days, I have a whole cupboard of cleaners to help me keep my house looking its best.

Then Ultimate Cloth got in touch with me to see if I was interested in reviewing its unique cleaning cloths. These Mirafiber cloths are designed to be used only with water to clean dirt, oil, soap scum and much more. For an eco-friendly reformed slob like me, they sounded like a dream come true. I received a package of Ultimate Cloth products of different sizes and I couldn’t wait to see how they worked. [Read more…]

Last year I was introduced to the revolutionary company Planet People and their sensational iQ Cleaning System. (You can read the review here.) I fell in love with iQ shortly after receiving it; the cleaners are ingeniously designed and so effective. So when I was given a chance to write a follow-up review of my experience with iQ cleaners, I was thrilled.

I received the iQ Bathroom Cleaner, the iQ Floor Cleaner and the Gloves Off Tough Stain Remover to review. I’ve been using iQ Cleaners since I first got the chance to test them out and the entire system is so well designed. Everything about iQ products was created to minimize environmental impact and ensure that your household is both clean and safe.

The key of the iQ system is its REFill technology; a clever system that lets consumers reuse the same large cleaning bottle and buy small, mess-free, easy to use concentrated capsules to refill the bottles. The capsules serve a variety of purposes. First, they ensure that large numbers of plastic cleaning bottles don’t end up in the landfills. Secondly, they ensure that the carbon footprint from transporting the cleaners to retailers is as minimal as possible thanks to their small size. And finally, they make the process of reusing a cleaning bottle quick and hassle free, as opposed to the large and messy refill bottles and bags that other companies use.

Every time I mix up a new bottle of iQ product, it’s a family event. The entire household loves seeing how the concentrated cleaner is released from the capsule to colour the water and make a new bottle of cleaner. What I love is the way the capsule sits right in the top of the bottle so that it is easy to put in and take out. I also like the fact that screwing on the top of the bottle releases the concentrated cleaner into the water so there’s no awkward fumbling or messy pouring.

I love all four of the cleaners in the iQ product line, but I still had plenty of All-Purpose Cleaner and Glass Cleaner when I was asked to write another review. My Bathroom Cleaner was almost gone and I had been out of Floor Cleaner for some time so I was very excited to get the replacements! The Bathroom Cleaner is the only product I use when it’s time to clean the bathroom because it has the strength to power through hard water stains and soap scum, but is still unbelievably gentle. In fact, all of the iQ products are non-toxic, safe to use around the entire family and feature yummy fruit scents that make cleaning as pleasurable as possible!

The Floor Cleaner is equally fabulous and while I usually just use steam for cleaning my floor, there are times when it is so dirty that I need something with a little more muscle. When those times come, there is nothing better than the great-smelling, hard-working power of iQ Floor Cleaner to get my floors sparkling.

I also received the Tough Stain Remover from Planet People’s Gloves Off line. Out of all the Gloves Off products, this one was definitely my favourite and my current bottle was almost empty so I was very happy to see the new bottle. What I love about the Tough Stain Remover is the fact that it can be used safely on so many surfaces. Whether I’m getting grass stains out of clothing, scrubbing paint off of furniture, blotting a wine spill out of a carpet or removing permanent marker from walls, Gloves Off is there to help me remove the mess without any poisonous or dangerous chemicals.

Receiving these products reminded me all over again about why I love the products from Planet People. The iQ system is so ingenious, and as if its gentle and effective formulas and its waste minimizing design weren’t wonderful enough, the capsules are also about 25% cheaper than commercial cleaners! If you’re looking for cleaning products that you can feel good about using, your search is over. Check out the iQ system and enjoy effective cleaning that your family, your planet and your wallet will all love!

Buy It: To purchase iQ cleaners, check your local Walmart or Loblaws, or check the website for a retailer near you

Win It: One very lucky reader is going to win an iQ prize pack containing the All Purpose, Glass and Bathroom Cleaner starter kits plus a year’s supply of REFill cartridges for each, a $50 value, from Planet People

To Enter (mandatory): Check out the iQ commercial on YouTube and tell me what you question the most about standard commercial cleaners

Disclaimer: The product/s mentioned above were provided free of charge from the company or PR firm for the purposes of this review. Opinions expressed belong to Mommy Kat and Kids and are NOT influenced in any way. Please view full Terms of Use and Policies

Last year, I was introduced to the wonderful eco-friendly cleaning products offered by Nature Clean. I loved how gentle and effective the products I reviewed were and considering the fact that Nature Clean has been providing Canadians with safe and effective cleaning solutions since 1963, it’s no wonder the company is so very good at what it does. When I was asked to review some of the other products in Nature Clean’s impressive arsenal of safe cleaners, I was thrilled. Most of the new products that I received to review were completely unknown to me but after my previous experience with Nature Clean, I was sure they would be wonderful.

I received the Glass & Window Cleaner, the Tub & Tile Cream Cleanser, the Lavender & Warm Vanilla Air Freshener and the Multi-Surface Cleaner & Degreaser to review. The products arrived carefully packaged and I pulled them out one by one eagerly. The first thing I noticed was that the Glass & Window Cleaner was clear and scentless. Even most eco-friendly glass cleaners on the market are a rather distinctive shade of electric blue, so I was very excited to see how the clear glass cleaner worked.

I tested the cleaner out on the glass door of our entertainment stand and the screen of our television that same day. With two sticky-fingered children in the house, the entertainment centre is one of the things that I just can’t seem to keep clean. The Glass & Window Cleaner did an amazing job of wiping away the fingerprints and grime and the finished surface was sparkling clean and completely streak-free. I really liked the fact that there was no scent to the product. I usually hate the smell even of eco-friendly glass cleaners, so having an effective scent-free alternative was a dream come true!

The Tub & Tile Cream Cleanser was very effective at removing water spots and leaving sinks, tubs and taps looking clean. I liked how easy the cleanser was to use; I simply squirted the thick white cleanser on a sponge, wiped the surface well and then rinsed it with water. The cleanser left my bathroom surfaces looking great, and while it didn’t remove the built-up hard water deposits around the bottom of the tap (our town has unbelievably hard water) it effectively cleaned up every other part of the sink and tub.

I’ve used the Multi-Surface Cleaner & Degreaser before and I still love it as much as I did when I first tried it. In fact, it is my everyday multi-purpose cleaner because I love the virtually-scentless formula and the gentle effectiveness.

My favourite product, however, was definitely the Lavender & Warm Vanilla Air Freshener. I love air fresheners, but I always worry about what ingredients I may be inhaling when I use one. With a family that has a history of asthma and allergies, spraying unknown substances into the air just isn’t a sensible thing to do. Thanks to the Nature Clean, I can finally enjoy air fresheners once again.

The other reason I loved this product was its unbelievable smell. I adore the aroma of vanilla and I can’t resist the soothing scent of lavender, but I would never have thought the two would smell so amazing when they were combined! The mouth-watering vanilla blends amazingly well with the distinctly herbal lavender to create a scent that is pure comfort. In fact, I sometimes spray this air freshener even when the house doesn’t especially need it, because if I’m feeling stressed or overwhelmed, the scent always makes me feel calmer and more collected.

Nature Clean’s incredibly eco-friendly products are free of SLS/SLES, animal ingredients, phosphates, parabens, sulphates, perfumes and dyes. The company abides by a strict self-imposed disclosure policy; no matter how little of an ingredient is used, it is always listed by its full name in the ingredient list. With cleaners for everything from laundry to toilets and products for both home and personal care, there is no need to introduce harmful toxins into your family’s space. Nature Clean products are available across Canada at Loblaws, Canadian Tire, Sobeys and many other fine retailers.

I am not surprised by how much I liked the Nature Clean products I received, but I am delighted. I love the honesty and integrity of the company as much as I love the effectiveness of the cleaning products, and there is no set of cleaners that I feel safer having around my family. For effective, safe and trustworthy cleaning for your family and your household, check out Nature Clean today!

Buy It: To purchase any of the wonderful products from Nature Clean, visit the website to find a retailer near you or shop online now

Disclaimer: The product/s mentioned above were provided free of charge from the company or PR firm for the purposes of this review. Opinions expressed belong to Mommy Kat and Kids and are NOT influenced in any way. Please view full Terms of Use and Policies